If the North Texas communities that are hard at work on gas drilling regulations had any question about the importance of their efforts, this headline makes it clear: Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas deposits is cleaning the air.

The United States now emits less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than at any time in the past 20 years, a dramatic shift that federal energy officials attribute to power companies favoring cleaner natural gas over dirty coal.

It was not that long ago that cheap power and cleaner air seemed an impossible pairing. Coal reigned as the main fuel for power generation but fouled the air. Then came hydraulic fracturing, which made it cheaper for drillers to tap new gas-rich fields in places like the Barnett Shale in North Texas and the Marcellus Shale in the Northeast.

As Robert Bryce wrote in a Points essay Sunday, thanks to new shale gas exploration technologies, almost as much of the nation’s electricity comes from natural-gas-fired plants as from coal-fired power facilities. Seven years ago, coal produced about half of all the electricity generated in the U.S. Now natural gas and coal each contribute about one-third of the nation’s energy needs. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions have dropped more in the United States than in any other country over the last six years.

The shift to natural-gas-fired power plants benefits the environment in other ways. Coal-fired power plants produce more than 90 times as much sulfur dioxide, five times as much nitrogen oxide and twice as much carbon dioxide as natural-gas-powered plants. Sulfur dioxide causes acid rain, and nitrogen oxide causes smog.

The natural gas resurgence isn’t a panacea for all that ails the air. While natural gas burns cleaner than coal, it still emits some CO{-2}. Critics of drilling near urban areas say it also could contaminate water tables, produce seismic tremors, lower property values and increase noise and traffic in neighborhoods.

The Dallas City Council has struggled with these and other issues for more than a year as it tries to decide how to regulate hydraulic fracturing within the city’s borders. The council, which is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks, must carefully and fairly balance the rights of property holders, residents and drilling companies. This newspaper believes the council would be wise to include tougher rules on how close drilling can take place to neighborhoods and to ban injection wells, which some studies link to seismic tremors.

After all, it’s in everyone’s best interests to assure that responsible natural gas drilling is a part of the energy equation.

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